CHAPTER 39 - THE INTERESTING THING ABOUT OLD FRIENDS

"What are you watching?" Elizabeth asked as she walked into the sliding door of their living quarters after letting out her students for the day. Jack was sitting on his berth as an image of a slender blond woman in jeans and a fitted tee-shirt floated in front of him.

"A hologram from an old friend of mine. She heard I was coming back to Earth and wants us to get together next time we're in Canada. I'll replay it for you," Jack responded as he pushed a button and the twelve-inch high woman stopped moving and became silent.

A second later the gossamer woman reappeared and her confident yet still feminine voice flooded the room.

Jack, I heard you're coming back home in a few months. It's been ages since we've talked. I'm back in North America now. I've been back for about six months . . .. .

. . . . Would love to see you . . . . Heard you got married . . . . We've got so much to catch up on. . . .

. .

Elizabeth found the woman to be friendly but her mention of various people that Elizabeth had never met quickly bored Elizabeth and after a minute, she began putting away her few pieces of laundry left on her bed from the quartermasters as the woman continued to speak to Jack.

"She seems really nice," Elizabeth offered pleasantly.

"Yeah, she is. She used to act tough sometimes, but she was a softie. Always adopting a stray cat or dog or trying to find a home for one. She had a talent with animals," Jack replied as the hologram ended and he closed the computer.

"That says a lot about a person", Elizabeth noted. She looked at one of her tee-shirts and was happy to see that a juice stain had come out in the laundry. "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated. Mahatma Gandhi said that."

"I never thought of it that way. But if you say so," Jack replied off-handedly.

"Were you good friends?"

"Yeah. I guess. I didn't know her long. Less than two years, but we were good friends."

"Is she married?"

"I doubt it. She thought it was an old-fashioned custom. She was kind of a free spirit."

"Well maybe she's settled down by now. You should send her a hologram back. To keep in touch. Good friends are hard to come by."

"I'll think about it."

"How do you know her?"

"We met through some mutual friends."

"Was she dating one of them?" Elizabeth asked with no more than mild curiosity as she examined the pair of socks in her hand and realized that they were Jack's.

"No. We dated for a bit."

"You dated her?"

Elizabeth stopped putting away her clothes and suddenly became more interested in the female whose image had just been floating in her living quarters.

"I went out with her for a few months. It was a year or so before I met you."

"Why'd you break up?" Elizabeth asked as she sat on the edge of the berth, opened up Jack's computer, and hit the play button again. She now watched more intently as the woman in jeans reappeared before her.

For some reason, the woman now seemed prettier than she had when Elizabeth had thought of her as just a platonic friend from Jack's past.

"We didn't really. We –"

"You didn't break up with her? She thinks you're still dating?!" Elizabeth interrupted as the hologram image was still speaking. . . .

. . . Space must be exciting. I miss you . . . ., the voice echoed through the room.

Jack rolled his eyes at Elizabeth's question.

"No, she doesn't think we're still dating. Not unless she's a moron. We were never in a serious kind of 'I love you' relationship. There was nothing to break up. We dated and then she took a job assignment in Johannesburg and we stopped seeing each other," Jack said as he changed into a pair of running shorts. "I'm going to go to the gym for a bit. You coming?"

Elizabeth ignored his question and asked one of her own. "If she hadn't have moved to Johannesburg would you have kept dating?"

"I don't know. Maybe until we each found someone else. Like I said, it wasn't anything serious. She was never 'the one'."

Elizabeth had to smile at Jack's words. She knew that she herself was Jack's 'the one'. The only one.

"Then why'd you go out with her?" Elizabeth asked out of curiosity.

"She was good company. No expectations of a serious relationship. She was dedicated to her job but she was fun. She liked to horseback ride, play cards, and target shoot. She had a motorcycle. She could drink me under the table," Jack added as he thought more about it.

"She sounds like a brute," Elizabeth remarked as any jealousy evaporated at Jack's description of his friend as nothing more than someone he had palled-around with.

She picked up an apple and rubbed it against her shirt to shine the skin and wondered what it would be like to meet Jack's family and friends.

Jack chuckled. "She isn't a brute. You saw her. She's very attractive. Tall. Well-toned. At least she used to be. We would work out sometimes together. She was pretty athletic. She competed in a couple of triathlons with one of our friends."

"It might be nice to meet her. I'd like to know your old friends. We don't know anyone from each other's lives before we met. What does she do? For a job?"

"She works with endangered wildlife. Preserving and protecting their natural habitat and them from poachers. She once sent me a picture of herself playing with wild lion cubs she had rescued."

"Wow. That sounds really interesting. Maybe when we get back to Earth, we can invite her over some time for dinner."

"Probably not a good idea," Jack said as he finished tying his shoelaces.

"Why not?"

"Just wouldn't be."

"Because I can't cook? It's not like I've had a lot of opportunity since I've known you. I'm sure I can pick it up quick enough and make something resembling a decent meal for your friend. It would be nice. I'd like to meet your friends."

"It has nothing to do with your cooking," Jack noted absently as he looked at a message on his communicator bracelet which had just emitted a beep. "Seth's meeting me in a few minutes at the racquetball court."

"Then why not?"

"I just think it might be awkward. A woman I used to have sex with and my wife having dinner together. Nah."

The apple fell from Elizabeth's hand before it reached her mouth. "Used to have sex with?!"

Jack stood up from the berth. "Yeah. Didn't I mention that?"

"No, you didn't mention that! You said she was someone you dated with no expectations of a serious relationship! You didn't mention you had sex with her!"

"Well I did and you can stop yelling it for the whole transporter to hear."

"How often?"

"How often what?"

"How often did you have sex with her? Once? Twice?"

"A day?" Jack asked as he crinkled her eyes at her in confusion as to why she was asking.

Elizabeth's eyes got wide in shock. "A day?" she gasped in horror. "Once or twice a day?" she repeated in a stunned voice. "Once or twice a day?!"

"Don't have a conniption. We dated – if you want to call it that – for a few months and we had sex a few times. Mostly we were just friends and enjoyed hanging out together on weekends to go hiking or biking or just to go to sports bars. And once we went sky diving."

"Sky diving," Elizabeth repeated in a daze. She was still in shock over the revelation that a woman who was well-toned, nice, very attractive and who had had sex with her husband, wanted to get together some time.

Elizabeth watched as Jack reached into his locker and took out his googles for racquetball.

"We are never meeting her. You understand that, right? We are never going to see her on Earth. Never," Elizabeth said firmly. "I don't care if we are being mauled by a pack of lions, she is not allowed to come near us."

"Pride", Jack said casually.

"Damn right, it's my pride. I will not have a woman who slept with you see you again."

"Pride, Elizabeth," Jack said with a smile as he again corrected her. "It's not a pack of lions that would be mauling us, it would be a pride of lions."

"Whatever." Elizabeth threw her hands up in disgust. "No meeting at a coffee shop. No visits at a zoo. No dinner at our place. We are never meeting her. Never. Got it?"

"That's what I said," he reminded her with a chuckle. "I said it probably wasn't a good idea to invite her for dinner."

While Jack was bouncing balls off of walls, Elizabeth was bouncing around ideas in her head. Wondering why Jack was attracted to her. Why he had married her when he clearly had had more interesting girlfriends before her.

She sat on her berth and frowned as she remembered some of the other women Jack had told her had dated before he had met her. There had been a pilot. A rancher. The ER doctor. A police officer. Actually, two of them. Thank goodness he didn't date both of them at the same time!

Motorcycles. Sports bars. Target Shooting. Sky diving!

He had such exciting dates with other women. What kind of dates did Jack and I go on?

One. One date. A movie which kept getting interrupted by power surges. Boring.

How come I never went on exciting dates before I met Jack?

I must have. I just can't remember them. Think, Elizabeth, she ordered herself.

There was Charles. We went to the country club and to see plays. And skiing once with the country club gang. There was Martin – we just played video games. . . . Peter was nice but boring. . . . Shaun was just a disgusting rich jerk with no ambition but to spend his daddy's money who liked to get drunk at fraternity parties.

So, Jack is the exciting one in this relationship and I'm the uptight boring prim and proper school teacher, she thought as she continued to frown.

I didn't have much competition in Hope Valley. Not compared to when we get back to Earth. Keeping some of those women from Jack in an isolated frontier colony was hard enough. How am I going to handle Earth?!

Women between the ages of eighteen and eighty-eight will want him!

All those countries!

All those women!

Half the world's population!

I've got to keep him interested in me.

What the heck am I going to do?!

UP NEXT: CHAPTER 40 AN IRISH LASS

Readers: To my reader who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, I am so sorry that you have to undergo that fight. I hope this chapter makes you smile.